KARACHI, Jan 17: Alina Farooq - the three-and-a-half-year-old girl with an 'exposed' heart - will undergo an operation next week at the National Institute of Cardio-Vascular Diseases (NICVD) in which the surgeons will add an artificial bone to her chest.

The aim of the operation, among the first such operations in South Asia, is to give protection to her heart which is vulnerable to injuries as a major bone is missing from the baby's chest.

The difficult operation will be performed by Prof Iftikhar Hussein Rathore of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Dr Akhtar Hussein of the NICVD.

Prof Azhar Masood Farooqui, the NICVD's Director, told newsmen on Saturday, soon after a detailed medico-surgical consultation on the issue, that no date had yet been decided upon. "But tentatively this operation is going to be carried out in the middle of next week," he said.

Answering a question, the professor said the baby's heart was almost normal. "So, the heart itself will not be operated upon, but a bone will be added to her chest."

Prof Farooqui said the operation would be multi-disciplinary one. "Some muscles will have to be relocated and the skin covering the heart, which is too thin, will have to be strengthened."

The NICVD's director said his hospital was going to foot the entire bill. "Even though, the baby's heart is normal there is some risk involved in the operation as she could fall victim to infections."

He was of the opinion that the sooner the operation was carried out the better. "When a person is young, her or his bones and muscles are flexible. This is why we feel that this operation should have been performed during the first year of the baby's life."

Prof Farooqui told the journalists that Alina's parents had given their consent to the operation planned. In response to a question, he said there were fewer than 20 similar operations worldwide that had been reported.

"And in South Asia, no similar case has ever been reported." Since there was very little in the scientific literature about similar cases, Alina's operation was unique for Pakistani surgeons.

Later, this reporter visited the room where Alina and her parents were resting. The baby seemed to be normal in all respects except for her chest which stirred each time her heart pumped blood.

Farooq Ahmed, Alina's father, told Dawn that he was satisfied with the treatment she was getting. He had not to pay a single penny to the hospital administration.

His family hailed from Dera Ghazi Khan. The name of Alina's mother was Zeenat, he added.